Why your business needs a website

Why having a website is no longer a luxury

Whatever type of business you’re in you need to have a website. Once seen as an expensive luxury only needed by bigger companies, smaller companies are now realising the importance of having an online presence.

The internet is huge. There are billions of websites online covering all kinds of subjects. Some are just for fun and entertainment, some are more factual but most are business related. If your business dosn’t have a website you can be sure your competitors probably do! This means you could be missing out on business which, lets face it, is more valuable than ever in todays economic climate!

So, what to do? Design one yourself, or pay for a professional online presence that will show your customers that you’re serious about what you do and you’re keen to take their business?

Let’s look at 3 different (fictional) scenarios:

Scenario 1

Karpet Klean has been established over 5 years and covers it’s local community. They’ve never had a website because they’ve never needed one. Most of their new business is generated by word of mouth so they can’t see the point of having a website. Recently however, they’ve seen a marked decrease in bookings but are certain this is beacause of the recession. Once things pick up they’re confident they’ll be able to regain their dominant market position that they’ve enjoyed for over 5 years…

Rug Renovators on the other hand, have been in business less than a year. The first thing they did was employ a web designer to create a simple brochure style website for less than £500 for their new venture. They have a growing customer base and have found that most of their business also comes from recommendations from past customers. But they’re also finding they’re picking up a lot of enquiries from their website. When they ask their new customers how they found them they find that most of them saw their web address on their vans and simply searched for it online. They were then able to send a quick email for Rug Renovators to call them to arrange a visit. They’ve even realised that they’re picking up customers from a more established competitor that doesn’t appear to have a website…

Scenario 2

Flower Power Florists specialise in Weddings and Funerals in their local area. When they first opened more than 25 years ago the internet didn’t exist but they were quick to realise the importance of having a website. 5 years ago they asked for quotes from a couple of local designers but were put off by the high costs involved so decided to create their own website using an online service. It included a home page, about page and contact page with their email address displayed. They regularly receive at least 2-3 emails every couple of months from people looking for a florist in their local area. They seem to receive an awful lot of unwanted emails from less scrupulous sources though and can’t understand what all the fuss of having a website is about…

Pretty Petunias are based less than half a mile away from Flower Power Florists. With more than 10 years experience behind them they too realised that they needed a website to help their business flourish. They chose a web design company to create their website that they specified needed to be modern, fresh and easy to update. Their website has been online for 3 years and features a content management system so they can easily update it whenever they have a special promotion or for seasonal purposes. They spend a few hours a month updating their website and regularly receive 10-20 emails per day from customers via their spam protected contact form. Business has increased substantially as a direct result of their website which has mitigated the initial costs of having the site built professionally.

Scenario 3

Colin’s Cars sell quality used cars locally. Their website was designed professionally by a web designer and includes a car listing facility so they can update their stock levels whenever they sell a car or get new stock. They’ve been really happy with the performance of their website which has helped them sell many cars over the years they’ve had it up and running. Recently though they’ve been seeing their website isn’t listed as highly on the search engines as it used to be and sometimes doesn’t show up at all for relevant searches. A local competitors website however always seems to appear on page one for the same searches. This has seen their market share fall but they’re confident this is just a blip and everything will return to normal in due course…

Secondhand Car Land also employed a professional web designer to create their website. In fact, they were so impressed with Colin’s Cars website that they actually employed the same company to design their website. Initially they decided to update their website themselves but over time they began to find that their website was being neglected and wasn’t performing very well in search engine results like it used to. They went back to the company that designed their website for advice and decided to employ them to update their website for them and to optimise their website for search engines. Now they no longer need to worry about updating their website. They simply email any sales and new stock to their web design company who make the changes for them. They’ve also seen their position in all the major search engines improve drastically with a first page listing for all their chosen keywords and phrases. This has helped increase sales and profits and has also seen an improvement in feedback from customers who are always impressed that their website contains fresh up to date information on all their cars.

These are obviously simplistic fictional scenarios but the moral to all of them is the same. A professional, regularly updated website is no longer just a luxury for big businesses. It’s a necessity for ALL businesses.